A Town Called Immaculate

Many thanks to Matt C. for putting together this MNW blog. I’m another Macmillan new writer. My book is called, A Town Called Immaculate, and due for release this December, a date that fits the setting of the novel well, since the story takes place on Christmas Eve day and ends on Christmas morning. I like to think of the book as literary fiction, but perhaps it could fall under the family saga or the thriller category as well.

My experience with MNW has been excellent, ever since I first heard of them at a book fair in Frankfurt last year. I visited a large Pan Macmillan display and spoke to a few people and I was told about this “new imprint” within the company, one that accepted unsolicited manuscripts. Although it was music to my ears, I thought the person must by lying, but clearly she was not. And here, a year later, I am publishing my first novel with MNW.

A bit about the book: The setting is Minnesota. It seems that few people can think of Minnesota without arriving at images of the movie Fargo. Those who do think of Fargo will not be disappointed, since the dead of winter is glowering over a small town – or more precisely, glowering over a small farm tucked away quietly in a fold of land near the town of Immaculate. The year in the novel is 1981. I was only four years old in 1981. Reagan and Thatcher held office, the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, the first AIDS cases became documented, MTV started broadcasting. For my purposes however, the year is equidistant from the Vietnam War and the First Gulf War, in a period of relative American peace (despite the fact that the U.S. engaged in plenty of silent “small” wars during the same time) where a family, remote from the power structures, still feel the impacts of fighting ideologies in a variety of ways, direct and indirect.

Since finishing Immaculate, I’ve finished my next novel, started another, and stayed busy working as a sportswriter and software consultant. I’ve left the sportswriting gig recently because of a graduated workload in my full-time job as a software consultant – a job which allows me to listen to audio books while I work.

My blogs and updates can be found here and also on http://www.peteranthonybooks.com/.